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Photos: 24 hours in Gaza, near the anniversary of border protests

In the build-up to the one-year anniversary of the Gaza border protests that opened up a deadly new front in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Reuters photographer Dylan Martinez visited Gaza for the first time. As someone who had never set eyes on Gaza, his assignment was to use those unfamiliar eyes to record life beyond the daily drumbeat of violence in the blockaded Palestinian territory. Accompanied by a Reuters assistant photographer from Gaza City, Martinez travelled the strip, photographing it at every hour of the day and night over a 10-day period.

Updated on: Apr 04, 2019 4:59 PM IST

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1/15

Street lights illuminate the Gaza skyline as the sun rises over fishermen as they bring their catch into the port in Gaza City. The mood had become more tense in recent weeks as the March 30 anniversary neared, with trails of Palestinian rockets and Israeli missiles again appearing in the skies above. (Dylan Martinez / REUTERS )

Updated on Apr 04, 2019 4:59 PM

Street lights illuminate the Gaza skyline as the sun rises over fishermen as they bring their catch into the port in Gaza City. The mood had become more tense in recent weeks as the March 30 anniversary neared, with trails of Palestinian rockets and Israeli missiles again appearing in the skies above. (Dylan Martinez / REUTERS )

2/15

Children make their way through the streets as they head to school in Gaza City. The streets are packed with kids and their rucksacks just before 7 am. In 2017, a Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics report said more than 40% of Gazans were under 15 years old. Just 3.3% of Palestinians over 15 were illiterate. (Dylan Martinez / REUTERS)

Updated on Apr 04, 2019 4:59 PM

Children make their way through the streets as they head to school in Gaza City. The streets are packed with kids and their rucksacks just before 7 am. In 2017, a Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics report said more than 40% of Gazans were under 15 years old. Just 3.3% of Palestinians over 15 were illiterate. (Dylan Martinez / REUTERS)

3/15

Bedouin jockeys parade their camels during a wedding party. Martinez did not know what to expect after he crossed through Israel’s fortified checkpoint, past a long caged walkway leading to a dilapidated Palestinian checkpoint. His remit, Martinez thought, was to do pretty much anything but capture the clashes. “Because everyone has seen that side of Gaza.” (Dylan Martinez / REUTERS)

Updated on Apr 04, 2019 4:59 PM

Bedouin jockeys parade their camels during a wedding party. Martinez did not know what to expect after he crossed through Israel’s fortified checkpoint, past a long caged walkway leading to a dilapidated Palestinian checkpoint. His remit, Martinez thought, was to do pretty much anything but capture the clashes. “Because everyone has seen that side of Gaza.” (Dylan Martinez / REUTERS)

4/15

Gaza residents pass an abandoned cinema. Older residents remember watching Egyptian movies in cinemas during the 1960s, but from the 1980s on, fundamentalist Islamist groups burned down such places of public entertainment and closed liquor shops. (Dylan Martinez / REUTERS)

Updated on Apr 04, 2019 4:59 PM

Gaza residents pass an abandoned cinema. Older residents remember watching Egyptian movies in cinemas during the 1960s, but from the 1980s on, fundamentalist Islamist groups burned down such places of public entertainment and closed liquor shops. (Dylan Martinez / REUTERS)

5/15

Children play a game of “Arabs and Jews” outside a school. “These kids were burning some cardboard, they had trenches, they were throwing sandballs so they weren't hurting each other. And I said, ‘Oh, what are you guys doing?’ and they said, ‘Oh, we are playing Jews and Arabs.’” The image, Martinez said, “will probably stay with me forever.” (Dylan Martinez / REUTERS)

Updated on Apr 04, 2019 4:59 PM

Children play a game of “Arabs and Jews” outside a school. “These kids were burning some cardboard, they had trenches, they were throwing sandballs so they weren't hurting each other. And I said, ‘Oh, what are you guys doing?’ and they said, ‘Oh, we are playing Jews and Arabs.’” The image, Martinez said, “will probably stay with me forever.” (Dylan Martinez / REUTERS)

6/15

A lone man walks on the beach. Parts of Gaza, to his surprise, resembled an underdeveloped version of California’s famed Venice Beach - with glorious Mediterranean sunsets, bathers and skateboarders, but often with crumbling buildings and rubbish heaps as part of the backdrop. (Dylan Martinez / REUTERS)

Updated on Apr 04, 2019 4:59 PM

A lone man walks on the beach. Parts of Gaza, to his surprise, resembled an underdeveloped version of California’s famed Venice Beach - with glorious Mediterranean sunsets, bathers and skateboarders, but often with crumbling buildings and rubbish heaps as part of the backdrop. (Dylan Martinez / REUTERS)

7/15

Car wrecks are seen at a garage. In vehicle scrapyards in the north, he saw stacks of discarded cars. With 53% of Gazans living in poverty, according to a United Nations report in December, valuable items such as cars are cannibalised for every accessory. (Dylan Martinez / REUTERS)

Updated on Apr 04, 2019 4:59 PM

Car wrecks are seen at a garage. In vehicle scrapyards in the north, he saw stacks of discarded cars. With 53% of Gazans living in poverty, according to a United Nations report in December, valuable items such as cars are cannibalised for every accessory. (Dylan Martinez / REUTERS)

8/15

Fishermen argue over prices as they unload their catch at the port. The same “use everything” dynamic could be seen at the harbour, where even the smallest fish discarded from a catch were gathered to be sold to poorer families. (Dylan Martinez / REUTERS)

Updated on Apr 04, 2019 4:59 PM

Fishermen argue over prices as they unload their catch at the port. The same “use everything” dynamic could be seen at the harbour, where even the smallest fish discarded from a catch were gathered to be sold to poorer families. (Dylan Martinez / REUTERS)

9/15

People arrive for prayer at Al Saeed Hashem Mosque in Gaza City. This mosque is the largest and oldest in Gaza, whose nearly 2 million population is overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim. (Dylan Martinez / REUTERS)

Updated on Apr 04, 2019 4:59 PM

People arrive for prayer at Al Saeed Hashem Mosque in Gaza City. This mosque is the largest and oldest in Gaza, whose nearly 2 million population is overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim. (Dylan Martinez / REUTERS)

10/15

Football fans and officials pray during half-time during a match between Rafah, from south Gaza, and their rivals Beit Hanoun during a soccer match. Gaza seemed evenly split between Real Madrid and Barcelona fans, but local rivalries also run deep, with some matches having to be played on neutral grounds. Palestine currently stands 100 in the FIFA world rankings, eight places behind Israel. (Dylan Martinez / REUTERS)

Updated on Apr 04, 2019 4:59 PM

Football fans and officials pray during half-time during a match between Rafah, from south Gaza, and their rivals Beit Hanoun during a soccer match. Gaza seemed evenly split between Real Madrid and Barcelona fans, but local rivalries also run deep, with some matches having to be played on neutral grounds. Palestine currently stands 100 in the FIFA world rankings, eight places behind Israel. (Dylan Martinez / REUTERS)

11/15

On Friday, away from the protests, Martinez went to the beach to see what was going on. “I really understood that not 2 million people had gone to the border to clash with the Israelis. What else were they doing?” he said. He found skaters with perhaps two boards between them, some pretty ropey roller blades... “just busy filming themselves trying to do flips, trying to do tricks, things like that.” (Dylan Martinez / REUTERS)

Updated on Apr 04, 2019 4:59 PM

On Friday, away from the protests, Martinez went to the beach to see what was going on. “I really understood that not 2 million people had gone to the border to clash with the Israelis. What else were they doing?” he said. He found skaters with perhaps two boards between them, some pretty ropey roller blades... “just busy filming themselves trying to do flips, trying to do tricks, things like that.” (Dylan Martinez / REUTERS)

12/15

Singer Rahaf Shamali, 15, Hamada Nasralla, 23, Ismaiel Al H'Razin, 42, Islam Mohsen, 24, and Saied Fadel of “Solband” pose on the roof of their apartment block in Gaza City. Martinez was warned many times by officials and bystanders on the street, in a more cautionary than menacing manner, not to photograph Hamas checkpoints and military installations. (Dylan Martinez / REUTERS)

Updated on Apr 04, 2019 4:59 PM

Singer Rahaf Shamali, 15, Hamada Nasralla, 23, Ismaiel Al H'Razin, 42, Islam Mohsen, 24, and Saied Fadel of “Solband” pose on the roof of their apartment block in Gaza City. Martinez was warned many times by officials and bystanders on the street, in a more cautionary than menacing manner, not to photograph Hamas checkpoints and military installations. (Dylan Martinez / REUTERS)

13/15

Saied Fadel, 22, and Hamada Nasrallah, 23, of “Solband” rehearse, as a clown on stilts walks by. Solband were not allowed to play at their venue as the ruling Hamas government declined their permit to perform. Often, Martinez said he did not realise what the buildings were because their exteriors gave no sign of what might have been within.. (Dylan Martinez / REUTERS)

Updated on Apr 04, 2019 4:59 PM

Saied Fadel, 22, and Hamada Nasrallah, 23, of “Solband” rehearse, as a clown on stilts walks by. Solband were not allowed to play at their venue as the ruling Hamas government declined their permit to perform. Often, Martinez said he did not realise what the buildings were because their exteriors gave no sign of what might have been within.. (Dylan Martinez / REUTERS)

14/15

“There’s a real sense of being enclosed...You look to the right, you turn one way, and there is Israel and you can go down this road but in a car it was taking 20 minutes. You look the other way, there is Egypt. You go down the road there, there’s a blockade, you can’t go any further. You look inland, and there in the background as well is the horizon, is Israel. And you can’t go that way. (Dylan Martinez / REUTERS)

Updated on Apr 04, 2019 4:59 PM

“There’s a real sense of being enclosed...You look to the right, you turn one way, and there is Israel and you can go down this road but in a car it was taking 20 minutes. You look the other way, there is Egypt. You go down the road there, there’s a blockade, you can’t go any further. You look inland, and there in the background as well is the horizon, is Israel. And you can’t go that way. (Dylan Martinez / REUTERS)

15/15

A man sells cigarettes. The sellers sell individual cigarettes at one shekel apiece, or a little more than 25 US cents. After the sun goes down and the streets empty, pool halls and bakeries continue to operate through the darkness imposed by night, and by Gaza’s constant power cuts. (Dylan Martinez / REUTERS)

Updated on Apr 04, 2019 4:59 PM

A man sells cigarettes. The sellers sell individual cigarettes at one shekel apiece, or a little more than 25 US cents. After the sun goes down and the streets empty, pool halls and bakeries continue to operate through the darkness imposed by night, and by Gaza’s constant power cuts. (Dylan Martinez / REUTERS)

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